State tries to make Christian camp coerce kids into anti-Christ faith
Twice already officials in the state of Colorado have gone to the Supreme Court in their misplaced campaign to control the thoughts, beliefs, and religious expression of individuals in the state.
Twice they’ve lost, getting scolded for exhibiting “hostility” to Christianity.
And a third case yet is pending before the high court.
Colorado taxpayers already have been stung for millions of dollars in the failed ideology imposed on them by leftist leaders – a Democrat governor, Democrat majorities in the state House and Senate and an all-Democrat state Supreme Court that at one point wildly tried, and failed, to grab control of the entire 2024 presidential election by barring President Donald Trump from the ballot.
But that’s not enough damage, those state officials have decided.
It is the Colorado Department of Early Childhood that now has changed policies so that a longtime Christian youth camp is being ordered to promote the anti-Christ mindset of transgenderism.
In direct violation to its religious beliefs and constitutionally protected religious rights.
“The government has no place telling religious summer camps that it’s ‘lights out’ for upholding their religious beliefs about human sexuality,” said ADF lawyer Andrea Dill. “Camp IdRaHaJe exists to present the truth of the Gospel to children who are building character and lifelong memories. But the Colorado government is putting its dangerous agenda—that is losing popularity across the globe—ahead of its kids. We are urging the court to allow IdRaHaJe to operate as it has for over 75 years: as a Christian summer camp that accepts all campers without fear of being punished for its beliefs.”
The ADF announcement confirmed it has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Colorado on behalf of IdRaHaJe, which takes its name from the hymn, “I’d Rather Have Jesus.”
The state policy change would, in fact, force all licensed resident camps in the state to believe and teach the fiction that boys can be girls and girls can be boys.
Such transgender ideologies exploded under the promotions adopted by Joe Biden when he was in the White House.
President Donald Trump simply decided that the position of the U.S. government is that there are two sexes, male and female, and they don’t change back and forth.
For those who follow the science, such ideology in fact is a myth, as being male or female is embedded in the human body down to the DNA level.
The camp has operated in the Bailey, Colorado, area, southwest of Denver, since 1948.
It has maintained a resident camp license since 1995.
But leftists inside the power structure in the state recently amended their rules, “requiring children’s camps to allow campers to access bathing, dressing, and sleeping facilities designated to the opposite sex.”
Camp officials asked for an exemption and were refused.
They serve children ages six to 17 and offer off-site backpacking and camping trips, as well as activities at the camp itself. Each year some 2,500 to 3,000 students attend the camp, whose mission is to “win souls to Jesus Christ through the spreading of the Gospel.”
The camp is open to all, and parents are asked to agree to camp policies when they register their children.
The state’s most recent catastrophe at the U.S. Supreme Court involved web designer Lorie Smith of 303 Creative.
She designs wedding websites, and had been ordered by the state to promote same-sex duos in her work, in violation of her deeply held Christian faith.
The Supreme Court scolded the state for its agenda to violate the First Amendment in the case.
And a statement from ADF explained in that case, “The government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe, and Colorado officials have paid and will continue to pay a high price when they violate this foundational freedom.
“For the past 12 years, Colorado has targeted people of faith and forced them to express messages that violate their conscience and that advance the government’s preferred ideology. First Amendment protections are non-negotiable. Billions of people around the world believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that men and women are biologically distinct. No government has the right to silence individuals for expressing these ideas or to punish those who decline to express different views.”
The state earlier was handed a Supreme Court scolding over its “hostility” to Christians when the justices decided the fight in favor of baker Jack Phillips, who also had been ordered by the state to promote same-sex weddings and such.
He, too, had declined to participate in the state’s leftist beliefs and ideology because doing so would violate his Christian faith.